1.208.  sos

An updated sos package that fixes several bugs and adds various enhancements is now available.

sosreport is a tool that collects information about a system, such as which kernel is running, what drivers are loaded, and scans various configuration files for common services. It also performs some simple diagnostics against known problematic patterns.

This updated sos package provides fixes for the following bugs:

Sos is a set of tools that gathers information about system hardware and configuration. The information can then be used for diagnostic purposes and debugging. Sos is commonly used to help support technicians and developers.

This updated package provides the following bug fixes and enhancements.

* The French translation of sos would prompt the user Voulez vous continuer (y/n)? but would ignore y as an answer and would only accept o or n. The prompt has now been corrected to reflect the actual options. (BZ#469365)

* Previously, sos could handle only default, conventional python paths. When run on systems with unconventional python paths, sos would crash. Sosreport is now tolerant of unconventional python paths and will not crash when it encounters them. (BZ#480302)

* For security reasons, sos sanitizes passwords that would otherwise appear in its report, including the shared secret (bindpw) from /etc/ldap.conf. Previously, if /etc/openldap/ldap.conf were symbolically linked to /etc/ldap.conf, sos would sanitize the bindpw in ldap.conf itself. Now, sos only sanitises the bindpw that is included in its report. (BZ#475190)

* Although sos is designed to run unattended if required to do so, recent versions still prompted users for input during diagnose method tests if the test found any problem. This prompt meant that sos was unable to run unattended. Furthermore, when it did not receive a reply to the prompt, sos would crash. Sosreport now automatically chooses the option to continue instead of prompting the user whether to continue or not, and can therefore run unattended. (BZ#475991)

* Previously, faulty logic in rh-upload-core prevented it from uploading a core if the quiet flag were not set. Additionally, the destination directory was incorrectly specified as dropbox.redhat.com. Now, rh-upload-core can upload a core regardless of the status of the quiet flag, and correctly sends the core to dropbox.redhat.com/incoming. (BZ#477042)

* When used with the Xen plugin, sos would stop responding due to flaws in the code of the plugin. In particular, a misnamed function would result in the plugin attempting to collect data from a Xen kernel when xend was not running. With these flaws corrected, the Xen plugin now works correctly and does not cause sos to stop responding. (BZ#490186)

* Sos archives its findings in a tar.bz2 file. However, neither tar nor bzip2 were listed as requirements in the sos package. Therefore, on minimal installations that included neither of these tools, sos would produce an empty tar.bz2 file. Sos now requires both these tools, which enable it to create its report.(BZ#503536)

* The Xen plugin for sos was looking for the presence of fully virtualized guests by searching for int-xen in /proc/acpi/dsdt. Due to changes in how the Xen hypervisor is implemented in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, this approach does not work with updates newer than Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1. The Xen plugin now searches for xen in /proc/acpi/dsdt instead and can therefore identify fully virtualized guests. (BZ#460788)

* The sos cluster plugin did not account for situations where the system locale may be set to something other than US English. On a system with a different locale, the plugin could not start chkconfig and therefore did not work. The cluster plugin now starts chkconfig with LC_ALL=C set, and works as intended. (BZ#462824)

* The sos RHN plugin obtained information from /home/nocpulse/ and /opt/notifications. However, RHN monitoring is now logged in /var/log/nocpulse/ and /var/log/notification/ instead. The plugin continues to search for logs in /home/nocpulse/ and /opt/notifications/ in order to preserve backward compatibility, but now searches for logs in /var/log/nocpulse/ and /var/log/notification/ too. (BZ#480786)

* Previously, sos imported data from snack, but did not use this data. However, in order to support this import, sos required three packages: snack, libnewt, and libslang. By avoiding the import, the packages are not otherwise required by sos, and if they are not required by any other component, they need not be installed. Avoiding unneccessary packages simplifies support and minimizes the space required to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (BZ#497840)

* As part of its report, sos lists the packages installed on the system. Previously, sos stored these in the order that they were provided by the rpm -qa command. Now, sos sorts the packages into alphabetical order as it compiles its list. Listing the packages alphabetically makes it easier to find packages visually, and groups some related packages together. (BZ#498474)

* Sos now includes a batch mode, in which it does not ask any questions during its run. Batch mode is invoked with the --batch option. (BZ#501842)

* Previously, the sos plugin that collects postfix data was simply named mail.py. This name was too generic to be meaningful, and was not consistent with the naming of other plugins. The plugin is now named postfix.py, which better describes what data it collects. (BZ#464207)

* Previously, sos reports included the contents of /var/log/httpd. This could make the reports very long, sometimes over 300 MB. Because the information contained in /var/log/httpd is relevant to few troubleshooting cases, sos no longer obtains it. If necessary, the contents of /var/log/httpd can still be obtained by using the apache sos plugin. (BZ#433040)

* Sos now includes many new plugins to support the collection of data from a wider range of applications. The new plugins allow sos to gather information about:

* Sos now includes information on a wider range of system parameters in its reports than it did previously. Newly collected details include:

All users are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes these issues and adds these enhancements.